Father is coming to-morrow! I am so excited and happy that to-day,
after I was safely out of Twickenham Town and there was no one to see
me, I stood up on Skylark's back and held the bridle with one hand and
waved the other in the air; and then I tried standing on one foot with
the other one out, but I came near losing my balance and just did catch
myself in time. Seeing a woman coming down the road in a buggy, with a
baby in her lap, I got back in place before she saw what I was doing,
but I needn't have done it, for it was just Mrs. Pettigrew, and she
wouldn't have cared whether it was my head or my heels which were on
the horse. She has eleven children and no husband to speak of, and
what people do or don't do doesn't bother her. We stopped for a little
talk and she told me about the roof leaking and the pig eating the
baby's bonnet which Miss Katie Spain had given it last Christmas, and
which was too small for its head, but was all it had; and that a kettle
of soft soap had fallen off the stove and burned two toes of Sammy, the
next to the youngest boy, and she would still be telling me things, but
I told her Father was coming and I had to attend to something, and so
she drove on.
I did have something to attend to, but I didn't attend right away, for
the day was so wonderful I couldn't go in for a long time. The
sunshine looked as if it had been washed and ironed, it was so clear
and clean and crisp, and the wind in the trees said all sorts of lovely
things to me, and I made up my mind that, no matter what happened in
life, I was always going to remember that warm and sweet and sunny
things are sure to come again, if at times they seem dead and buried,
and that I would try not to see the cranks and queernesses of people as
much as I was by nature inclined to do; and then I went right back to
Miss Susanna's, and before I knew it I had said something I oughtn't,
and to Mr. Willie Prince.
Every time I see Mr. Willie I thank God he is no relation of mine. He
is the only man boarder in the house, which is another thing to be
thankful for; but, though he is hard to stand, he is nearly sixty and a
human being, and I ought to remember what I forget and yesterday I
didn't remember. He was the only son of his mother and should have
been a daughter, and in trying to make him one his maternal parent
succeeded better than in anything else she ever attempted, Miss Bettie
Simcoe says--and she ought to know, being his first cousin. His
business is telling people what they don't want to hear; and, though he
doesn't do any work, a hound dog couldn't run a rabbit down quicker
than he can a piece of gossip, and when he isn't sitting on somebody's
front porch fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan, from which he is
never separated in summer, he is down at the drug-store hearing and
being heard. He thinks he is handsome, and he is as proud of his pink
cheeks as a goose of her gander, and I'm sure he puts something on them
on cool days. If he could wear some blue ribbon on his sandy hair and
have trousers and coats to match his fancy vests he would be perfectly
happy. As a man he is a poor job, but as a Miss Nancy he is perfect,
and when yesterday I came in from my ride he made me so mad that I
popped out something I shouldn't have popped and before I knew I was
going to do it.
He was sitting on the porch when I came up, fanning as hard as he could
fan, and as I went by he stopped me. "I would advise you to be more
careful when you go in wading at the creek, Miss Kitty," he said, "It
isn't customary for young ladies in Twickenham Town to do such things
and--"
"And where I came from it isn't customary for gentlemen to follow young
ladies and see what they do," I said, and the minute the words were out
I knew I shouldn't have said them, for his face got as red as a beet
and he jumped up and walked into the house.
I don't know that he really followed Sallie Sclater, who's a visiting
girl, and myself to see if we went wading, but we certainly went and
had a good time doing it, though we had to dry our feet with my
petticoat. But from the way his face went he must have made it
convenient to walk in that direction and must have seen us, or he
wouldn't have known anything about our going, as we were careful to
look around before we took off our shoes and stockings. I can't endure
him, but he is nearly sixty and I am only sixteen, and I shouldn't have
spoken as I did; and possibly because I was so happy over Father's
coming I told him last night that if I had said anything I shouldn't I
hoped he would forget it and I, too, would forget what had been said.
And that, of course, I knew gentlemen in Twickenham Town never did
anything gentlemen shouldn't, and that my quickness of speech was
always getting ahead of me; and he looked so relieved that I am
perfectly certain he followed us. But, anyhow, he was very pleasant
last night and told a scream of a story about poor little Miss Lily Lou
Eppes when she thought she had a beau. She had almost landed him when
he got away. He's never been heard from since.